Rigging might be the main reason for why I don't want to become a 3D modeler for my job. It is a painful and frustrating process that requires patience and lots of trial and error to get correct. Making the bones is only the first part, which in itself can be frustrating, then you have to move on to hierarchy and envelopes, both not only are very complicated and difficult to get used to on their own, but they are both required to get a model that will be easy to animate. The one thing I can say about this process is when the rigging is finished it is immensely satisfying just to mess with. Then there comes the part that I immensely love about 3D modeling and that is animation. 3D Animation is possibly the best thing about 3D and if Disney has anything to say about it they would agree. You see animating in 3D is the opposite of rigging, It is way faster than stop motion 2D animation and much easier to create realistic perspective. Which is probably something I could turn into a career which is 3D animation. So its fitting that for the end of the year we are doing both.
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This previous quarter has been a whirlwind of events that has caused us to lose a lot of class time this quarter. During this time our class has worked on lighting and cameras. Lighting was much easier for me because I had some experience with that during an internship last summer. The most difficult thing this quarter has been rotating a camera around an object. After messing with pivot for two whole class periods, I found out that my 3Ds max was bugged so the pivot function wasn't working properly. I had to redo the whole thing. The reason it was so difficult was partially because it was a new tool that I had to figure out and mainly because pivot would stop working when I turned on auto key, making the whole process incredibly frustrating. Ultimately I just decided to scrap the pivot system and decided to animate it manually which did not turn out very well. The end product is below and I'm not proud of it. The camera itself is zooming in and out during the shots which created a dolly zoom. I feel like I could become more effective with pivot if I had more time, but I needed to complete the project.
This Is part two of modeling the largest sword in history the zweihander. This time around I've applied what I've learned making UVW maps to create texture for my sword. This was a super fast process know that I know how to implement it and the end result looks pretty good for a first attempt at 12:00 am. The UVW work itself I could have done more smoothly though instead of having the sword blade split up into different sections I should have just had completed on the UVW map.
Recently I just finished UV mapping a robot by creating an image on Photoshop and then transferring it to 3DS Max, which was actually really fun to do. During this process though it was a bit tedious to transfer the TIF file on to the image and then Unwrap it to make it look correct. So that got me thinking are there any 3D modeling software that can allow you to directly paint on your 3D model and it turns out there is! Blender a free 3D modeling software has this functionality. I found a tutorial where Grant Abbitt demonstrates this process. Its a really interesting video just to see the object get painted, but I do want to try this in the future.
Abbitt, Grant, director. Texture Painting Tutorial. YouTube, YouTube, 6 Dec. 2015, www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcCQKuWPhXk. So I'm not sure if you have realized this by now but the creators of Hypixel a large minecraft server are creating a game called fittingly enough Hytale. Now to a lot of people when first seeing Hytale just categorized it as another minecraft clone, which it may well end up being but there is one thing that separates Hytale from all the other minecraft clones and even minecraft itself, the thing is Hytale has not only an in game 3D editing software but also in game C# coding. This is all for making the game super accessible for creators who want to make their own block like creations from code, possibly including for those who want to teach C# and 3D modeling to others like, I dunno at a specific game course. Who knows the point is that I think Hytale is going to be super interesting and that you should give it a look.
https://hytale.com/ This last week in game design our class has gone from adding materials to surfaces (painting) to UVW mapping or (wrapping). The switch has been admittedly slow I ran into a weird issue with the multi sub object modifier where instead of putting standard materials in the sub object material it instead ether replaced the material or put it within another sub object, at one point I had five sub object materials within one another. It was such a mess that I had to restart a few times. Long story short is don't use the compact material editor even when a tutorial uses it. Otherwise UVW has been fairly straightforward, I am still a bit behind unfortunately.
Since my last personal update I have made a lot of 3D models from chess to neighborhoods, but there has been one thing that I really wanted to make and that was a zweihander. You know that big two handed German great-sword that is my favorite thing ever. Anyway I made a test model for one in 3Ds max which I'm proud to show off. It's actually a really simple model where I basically only used the edit poly modifier to make but I’m really proud of the end results.
This last week has been tough for me work wise. I have been catching up on a lot of 3D modeling, although I have been able to accomplish a lot now that I have 3Ds Max at home, it has still been a lot to do in a week. I have relearned all tools and techniques from last year as well as my complete hatred of the cloth modifier, which gave me plenty of trouble over the last week. For the next few months I think we are going to be moving in one of two directions. It will ether be rigging or animation, and there is only one thing I hate more than the cloth modifier and that is rigging so for my sake I hope it is animation. I just thought of a cool idea for animation using the daylight and cloth modifiers to make a time lapse animation which could be cool, but who knows. Most of these tools have given me ideas for personal projects like 3D modeling a zweihander with the taper and symmetry modifiers then using that 3D model in digital paintings, which is something I will have to do on my free time. Or using the daylight modifier to simulate shadows of a cliff or mountain that I could then paint. Maybe I'll do a blog post on some of the personal 3D stuff that I could do in the future.
This Monday ill start working on simulations for 3Ds max. What that means basically is that I'll be working on for the last bit of the quarter. If you aren't already aware simulations are simply put simulations of the real world, (super obvious I know) they include light sources, mass or weight, and cloth. These all seem interesting and all will definitely be needed for making good professional grade work. Especially cloth and lighting, For all those super hero capes, realistic clothing, flags, explosions, dramatic lighting, and good old fashion reflections, that is required in all good professional work. For games I think learning good lighting will actually be the most important when it comes to simulations not only for the reasons earlier but also for creating mood lighting and realistic day and night cycles. I linked a cool tutorial about making realistic lighting.
VanLoon3D.“RealisticInteriorLightingin3dsMax-Vray.”YouTube,YouTube,23May2016,www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWu1z081EKY. Spoiler alert I like surface modeling more. Honestly this is mainly because i'm more used to surface modeling more but I recognize the usefulness of parametric modeling and as I've used it more the faster I've been able to make things. I kinda wish I still had 3Ds max at home so I could keep messing with the software. Surface modeling is really useful for making cool shapes like that space ship we made last year, while parametric modeling is really good for getting details right in a model like smoothing out a plane or adding weird extensions or making the model more complex in general.
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Miles RomanHi, I am a student at Durham School of the Arts, and this blog will be documenting my experiences with my Game Design class. Categories
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